by Mary Balogh
She smiled very slightly but did not answer him. It had been a foolish question to ask. The silence stretched again.
“The fact is,” he said at last, “that we are married.”
“Yes.”
“Neither of us wished for it,” he said. “And we did not even have the good fortune of being indifferent to each other when we were forced into it. There has been a dislike, even a hostility, between us for so long that it has been difficult for us to be in company with each other and remain civil.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You told me two months ago,” he said, “on two separate occasions that you would as soon never set eyes on me again. I complied with your wishes since they so nearly matched my own. But it has occurred to me since that we were both thinking with our emotions at that time, so soon after your miscarriage. It has occurred to me that now we have distanced ourselves somewhat from that unhappy event, we should perhaps rethink the decision to spend our lives apart.”
“Yes,” she said.
It seemed strange to be talking to a Moira who was not arguing. Was she being coldly obedient? Coolly indifferent? Or had she done her own thinking and come to similar conclusions? Did she find the present state of her life insupportable as he did his—or as he had since that night when Nat had chipped away the ice about his heart and actually reduced him to the ignominy of tears?
“As the Countess of Haverford,” he said, “it is right that you should be presented to the ton. And there is a great deal of enjoyment to be had from the activities of the Season. They will increase in both number and quality during these last few weeks, I would guess. You cannot be blamed for coming here to participate in them, even if you came for no other reason. Perhaps you will do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to some of the entertainments and to present you as my countess.”
“That seems reasonable enough,” she said.
“And perhaps at the same time,” he said, “we can both be deciding whether there is anything to be made of our marriage.”
There was a lengthy pause. But when he turned his head to look at her again, it was to find her looking back at him, perfectly composed. “That sounds reasonable too,” she said.
“I will give no commands at the end of the Season,” he said. “We will each make the decision. Neither of us knows yet if a marriage lived out in close proximity to each other can ever be tolerable. It is to be hoped that we will come to the same decision. If we do not, we must hope that at least we can come to some sort of amicable agreement. If living together even occasionally proves to be quite out of the question, you may return to Dunbarton and live out your life there. I shall make a home of the rest of the world. And there will be no further commands to join me. Though I did not frame it as a command, Moira, but as a request.” He heard the resentment in his own voice and hoped she had not noticed it.
She half smiled. “Is not a request from a husband the same thing as a command?” she asked him.
“No,” he said curtly. “Not from this husband. And this husband is the only one you have. I will not have you picking quarrels with me at every turn as you did in Cornwall, Moira. I would have you treat me with the civility of common courtesy.”
“Is that a command, my lord?” she asked.
He opened and closed his hand on the mantel. “You agreed a few minutes ago to give this thing a chance,” he said. “I have been at pains to explain that I will give you an equal say in solving this problem we have. Are you still willing to try?”
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose so. Yes, I am willing to spend these weeks with you or part of them at least. You have your friends here and doubtless will wish to spend time with them. It would be intolerable for us to spend every moment of every day together, would it not? But perhaps some of the time.”
Her eyes had darted to his at the word day. It was something he had been quite undecided about. He was still undecided—and should perhaps keep silent until he knew at least what he wished. But the word seemed to hang in the air between them, together with an awareness that it was evening and that they were alone in this house together, apart from the servants. And that they were man and wife.
“One thing more,” he said. “And the choice is yours. Do you wish to have marital relations with me during these weeks? Tell me what your preference is.”
For the first time, she looked discomposed. Her cheeks flamed. But she did not move or dip her head. “It would be unwise,” she said.
“Unwise?” He felt as if much of the air had been somehow sucked from the room.
“It is for love,” she said quietly. “And there is no love.”
“There is frequently no love in marriage,” he said. “Sometimes it is simply for pleasure. Sometimes it is for other reasons.”
“There would be no pleasure,” she said. “We have agreed to find out during the coming two weeks or so if there is any chance at all that we can live together, at least occasionally. I am aware that we must try to find that chance. You are a man of wealth and property and will wish for an heir of your own body to succeed you. But at the moment, my lord, there is nothing between us except the will to try and a thinly veiled hostility that has broken into irritation more than once just this evening.”
He might have trusted Moira to be brutally honest. Was he disappointed? He wanted her—he would admit that to himself. And if he did not have Moira, then he would have no one—at least not until after they had made a final decision never to live together again. But was it perhaps better not to have the emotional entanglement that a physical relationship would inevitably bring with it? He was not convinced that it was—or that it was not.
“Is that your final answer, then?” he asked. “There will be no marital relations between us?”
She paused to think. “No,” she said, “it is not a final answer. I am here so that we may spend some time together, so that we may enjoy some of the entertainments of the Season together, so that we may come to a decision about the future. For now, for tonight, it is an answer.”
“I may ask you again, then?” he said.
“Yes.” She looked steadily at him. “But I cannot promise that my answer will change.”
He nodded. “That is fair,” he said. He was disappointed. It was all startlingly real suddenly, the fact that she was his wife. And that she was here at Haverford House, poised and elegant and beautiful. And that she was Moira.
“You must be tired,” he said, looking at the clock over the mantel. “It is quite late. What time did you arrive?”
“In time for a late dinner,” she said. “We started early this morning so that we would not have to spend another night on the road.”
“You must allow me to escort you to your room, then,” he said, pushing himself away from the mantel and taking the few paces to her chair.
“Thank you.” She got to her feet and set her hand on his wrist. He was reminded of her height and pleased by it. He was so mortally tired, he realized, of dancing and walking with ladies who did not even reach to his shoulder—Miss Wilcox and Mrs. Herrington, for example.
They ascended the stairs and walked along the corridor to her dressing room in silence. He could see a band of light beneath the door. Her maid must be in there unpacking her things, waiting for her to come to prepare for bed.
“I will do myself the honor of staying at home tomorrow morning,” he said, “so that I may be at your service. You must not feel compelled to get up before you are fully rested, though.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He bowed over her hand and kissed it before opening the door for her. “Good night,” he said. “I am pleased to see you again and to see that you have recovered your health.”
“Good night.” She half smiled at him, but she did not return the compliment. It was a well-remembered reaction of Moira’s. She had never said anything to him merely because he had firs
t said it to her. When she was a girl he had told her—more than once—that he loved her. She had never said those words to him.
He drew a slow breath as he closed the door again after she had stepped through it. It was not going to be easy having her here, seeing her daily, and not touching her. But perhaps she had made the right decision. What was wrong in their marriage could not be put right with a bedding. It could perhaps only be complicated—especially if he were to impregnate her again.
But, by God, this was not going to be easy.
* * *
MOIRA stood at the window of her bedchamber, playing absently with the heavy braid she had draped over one shoulder and gazing out onto the square. There were lights in the house on the opposite side and two carriages outside the door. The coachmen were sitting on the carriage steps, out of sight of the house, talking and laughing. Moira could hear the sounds. London, she concluded, was a busy and a noisy place.
She wondered if she would sleep, tired as she felt. Everything was so very new. Entering London had been like entering another world. And seeing Kenneth again . . .
She did not know if any of the decisions she had made in the past week or so had been good ones. Decisions would be so much easier to make, she thought, if one always knew what was right and what was wrong, or if one could at least know the consequences of each. Had she been right to come to London? Her life had been peaceful and productive since she had recovered her health. And, as he had said earlier, his letter had not been a command, but a request. She could have said no.
Had she been right to agree to allow him to escort her to ton entertainments for the rest of the Season? To try to enjoy the Season with him? But what would have been the point in coming if she was not willing to try at least that much? Had she been right to agree that they try to make something of their marriage? How could they when their mutual hostility ran so deep and went back so far? Yet how could they not? They would be married for the rest of their lives, even if they never saw each other again after these weeks were over.
Had she been right to refuse to allow marital relations? Surely if they were to give their marriage a try, they must treat it as a proper marriage. But how could she have said yes? She could not have. She could not make a sane decision about their marriage, about their future, if she allowed him into her bed. She had known that as soon as she saw him this evening, long before he had put the question to her.
She had seen him striding into the room ahead of his friends, laughing, unaware that she was there, and she had been almost overwhelmed by emotion. She would not call it love—she did not love him. Quite the opposite, in fact. She would not call it lust either, though she had felt a deep, almost frightening desire for him. She was not sure what to call it. But she did know that her experiences of almost nine years ago and those of a few months ago had revealed him to her as a man she could never fully trust or like or respect. She did not believe—though she would try to keep an open mind—that the events of the next two weeks or so could change her opinion of him enough to make a difference. But she did know—she felt it instinctively—that if she allowed him the sort of intimacies that husbands enjoyed with their wives, the sort of intimacy they had shared on that dreadful night of the storm, she might never be able to make a rational decision. She would lose her self-respect.
She feared—she greatly feared—that it would be very easy to be in love with Kenneth. Not to love him, but to be in love with him. And if she was in love with him, she might decide that she wished to stay with him, even though the saner part of herself would know very well that she could never find happiness with him.
“Kenneth,” she whispered. She wondered if he had any inkling of how much she had desired him as he had stood by the fireplace, one foot on the hearth, one hand on the mantel, in a posture of masculine ease, looking handsome and elegant and somewhat remote. She desired him still.
She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
I am pleased to see you again.
Oh, yes. And she, God help her, had been pleased to see him again too.
18
IT felt strange waking and getting up and knowing that his wife was in town—in the rooms adjoining his own, in fact. She had come and she had listened quietly to what he had said and had agreed with him. She had agreed to enjoy the pleasures of what remained of the Season with him. She had agreed to give their marriage a trial—except for the one aspect. It surprised him, when he thought about it, that he had slept remarkably well all night.
He felt absurdly nervous. He did not know quite how he would face her today, how he would treat her, what he would talk about. But he was not given long to consider the matter. She was up early, despite the fact that she had traveled long hours for several days and everything here in town was strange to her. But he might have known she would keep country hours. She was dressed elegantly and stylishly even if not in the first stare of fashion. She looked as beautiful to his eyes as she had looked the evening before.
“Perhaps,” he said, having seated her at the breakfast table and waited until the attendant footman had filled her plate according to her directions, “you would like to see some of the shops this morning? And take out a subscription at the library?”
“That does not sound like the sort of amusement a gentleman would crave,” she said. “Do you plan to escort me, my lord?”
“It would be my pleasure, ma’am,” he said, one of his hands playing absently with a fork beside his plate. She seemed like a stranger to him this morning—a stranger he somehow wished to please. It would be a pleasure, he thought. He did not crave his usual morning ride with his friends or the leisurely hour or two he usually spent at White’s, reading the papers and conversing with acquaintances.
She smiled at him. She was not being herself either, he thought. She was playing a part: the gracious and charming lady living up to her end of a commitment. They were like a couple of polite strangers this morning, but perhaps that was no bad thing.
“Then I would like it of all things,” she said. “I daresay the shops in London quite put those at Tawmouth in the shade.”
“I am surprised,” he said, “that your father did not bring you to town for a Season.”
“A Season in town is costly, my lord,” she said. “There was Sean’s . . .” She speared a piece of sausage with her fork and popped it into her mouth without completing the sentence.
There had been Sean’s commission to purchase and the uniform and sword and other gear to go with it. The expenses would have put a severe strain on the resources of Penwith—already hugely depleted by Sean’s debts. But he had hoped to avoid all reference to the past during these few weeks together. Nothing could change the past. And therefore nothing could save the future, perhaps. But they must try to see what could be done.
“The pleasure of acquainting you with London and its shops and sights and entertainments will be all mine, then,” he said. “I am selfishly glad it will be all new to you.”
“Thank you.” She smiled again.
Perhaps, he thought later as they strolled along Oxford Street, it really was as well that they had somehow become strangers. They had conversed politely, even if a little stiffly, all morning without a hint of a quarrel. And he was enjoying having her on his arm, watching heads turn to take a second glance at her. People must wonder who it was the Earl of Haverford was escorting. She was unmistakably no ladybird, but no one would know who exactly she was—until he presented her as his countess. He was exhilarated by her company.
He took her inside a milliner’s shop when she admired the bonnets in the window, and soon had her trying on a dozen different creations.
“But I do not need any more, my lord,” she said, turning from the oval glass on the counter to reveal more fully to his admiring eyes an extremely fetching straw bonnet, trimmed with flowers about the crown and with a wide blue ribbon that tied in a bow beneath the
chin. “I already have plenty.”
But he knew that she loved it and wanted it.
“We will take it,” he said to the milliner’s assistant.
“My lord,” she said, but she blushed and laughed and made no further protest.
At another shop he bought her a pair of fine straw-colored gloves to match the bonnet. They were such an extravagance, she told him, but she thanked him. He found that he was enjoying himself enormously.
“Oh, what beautiful fans,” she said on Bond Street, stopping to gaze into another shop window. “Do look at the paintings on them, my lord. They are works of art. Quite exquisite.”
He stood beside her looking at them—and at her.
“Which one do you like best?”
“The naked Cupid shooting his arrow at the fleeing nymph, I do believe,” he said. “She might as well stand still. She does not have a chance of escaping.”
“But I, too, would wish to escape from such a silly-looking shepherd,” she said, laughing. She looked youthful and happy, he thought. “I like that one—the one with the lady sitting on a mossy bank while a gentleman leans across the stile to admire her. It is a romantic scene.”
Despite her alarmed protests, he went inside the shop and bought her that particular fan.
“I will be afraid to express a liking for anything else,” she said to him when he came out again, “for fear that you will buy it for me. You do not need to, my lord. You make me a very generous allowance and I have everything I could possibly need.”
“Perhaps, ma’am,” he said, “it pleases me to buy you pretty things.”
She half frowned and her eyes clouded for a moment, but she smiled again. “Thank you, then,” she said.
She kept determinedly silent as they stood before a jeweler’s window even though he drew her attention to a display of bracelets and tried to play the same game as she had played with the fans. She would not be drawn.
“Come inside,” he said, “so that we may see them without the barrier of the glass. Jewels should be seen with the naked eye.”